His Power in My Weakness

This past year I learned to love Jesus more by accepting my weaknesses and brokenness as a gift of his love for me. The COVID-19 shutdown has given me time to see and begin to heal from the many losses experienced in the past three years through a denied Australian visa: Loss of fruitful ministry roles; Loss of family (leaving our daughter and her family behind); Loss of a sense of identity and accomplishment; Loss of familiarity of culture/country; Loss of my closest girlfriend to cancer just two months after our return; And finally, loss of confidence to serve as God put me into a totally new and unfamiliar form of ministry. Many losses that resulted in brokenness.

Meet Jeremy, a ceramic bank which has travelled the world with me since 1972. Tragically, he was shattered on the final leg of our journey. As I have worked to piece him back together (at times doubting it could be done), I have been on a spiritual journey of healing. The cracks show, the scars are there, and small pieces knocked out are either lost or too small to glue back. Those too small pieces are in a bag inside Jeremy, as they are still part of my story. Sometimes those pieces are jostled and the shards stab and cause pain. But they are still part of God’s story for me right now.

A special hug from God is the back of Jeremy’s head. Here the pieces are too small to glue back. Yet it turns out that the shape left here is the outline of Australia – where part of my heart remains with my kids, grandkids, and former ministry.

Replicating Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing cracked or broken pottery with molten gold or silver, I have painted the cracks on Jeremy with gold paint – so the cracks are even more visible. I do not try to hide them. They highlight a damaged object with a story to be celebrated, not hidden, or discarded. Jeremy is a constant reminder to me, and a testimony to others, that in my brokenness God is working and showing himself through the cracks and scars. His power is made perfect (whole) in my weakness (brokenness), and I am still learning what that means.

Key Quotation

Like Paul, I am learning to “boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me.”

Marti Williams, TEAM